Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Gorbachev, Oct. 15, 1990

On this day in 1990, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Mikhail Gorbachev, president of the Soviet Union, “for his leading role in the peace process which today characterizes important parts of the international community.”

After Gorbachev came to power in 1988, he removed Soviet troops from Afghanistan. Later on, he declined to intervene in the political upheavals that shook the Soviet “satellites” in Eastern Europe. In a 1989 summit with President George H.W. Bush in Malta, he declared in the midst of a Mediterranean gale that the Cold War was over.

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Meantime, Gorbachev’s domestic policies — predicated on moving toward a market economy while preserving the union of all 15 Soviet republics through deep-seated political reforms — was coming under ever-rising pressure from democratic, separatist and nationalist forces. The announcement of the prize in Oslo, Norway, coincided with the founding of DemRossiya, a pro-reform coalition. At the same time, Russia and Ukraine both declared that their own laws trumped Soviet ones.

As Gorbachev struggled to retain power, he sent a low-level aide, Andrej Kovaljov, to accept the prize on Dec. 10. His 625-word speech noted that “1990 represents a turning point. It marks the end of the unnatural division of Europe. Germany has been reunited. We have begun resolutely to tear down the material foundations of a military, political and ideological confrontation.”

In June of 1991, however, Gorbachev went to Oslo to deliver another acceptance address that was nearly 10 times as long. In that speech, he defended himself against charges that he had been guilty of “utopian thinking” for striving to eliminate the worldwide threat of nuclear weapons.

As 1991 came to an end, powerful centrifugal secessionist forces held sway over the Kremlin. Gorbachev resigned on Dec. 25 and the Soviet Union was formally dissolved the following day.